Adventures beyond the front door
It was our good friend Nicky who gave us the idea. ‘If you’re already taking the night train to Vienna,’ she said, ‘then might I suggest you book tickets to Graz? The price will be the same and you’ll get to spend the morning following the Semmering Railway through the mountains. You can always have… Continue reading Along the Semmering Railway
There is something special about travelling through the night by train. The feeling of movement in the darkness. The twinkle of lights in unknowable towns and villages. The melancholy reflection of a subdued carriage in the window. The promise that comes with stepping onto the train from a platform in one country and stepping down,… Continue reading On the Night Train
Summer is often a time when we hit the road, loading up the car with all our camping gear and heading off to discover new places and, more often than not, meet up with old friends. As with so much of travel, sometimes the best memories and unexpected moments happen during the journey and not… Continue reading The Joy of Road Trips
It was a moment last summer, when the calendar clicked over to 20 months since our last trip to the sea, that we finally snapped. We had stood on the Baltic shore in the December before the pandemic struck, and for more than fifteen years before that we had managed to make it north at… Continue reading Escape to the seaside – Warnemünde
Just outside Kranjska Gora we stopped by a lake and the statue of Zlatorog – the golden horned ibex that was said to stalk the slopes of Triglav, Slovenia’s highest mountain. We followed his gaze up into the hills, where low clouds obscured all but the lowest peaks. Was it worth continuing? We stood with… Continue reading Crossing the Vršič Pass
There is something special about night trains. At Euston station, the main ticket hall was thronged with frustrated people. Signal problems and other delays north of London had caused chaos for the evening travellers, most of whom were just trying to get home, and the mood was a mix of anger and resignation. Down on… Continue reading The Caledonian Sleeper
Our starting point was the car park of a lookout spot, above the village of Balatonvilágos and the shore of the lake that gave it its name. We had been dropped here with our bikes, and if everything went to plan, we would arrive back in five days' time having completed our journey around the… Continue reading Following the shore – Cycling Lake Balaton
The Winding Trail 